Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
FRANCESCA
Tana manor reminds me of Kincaid. Beautifully menacing on the outside, but through the doors, I’m enveloped in a cocoon of warmth and safety.
We pass a man with jet-black hair on the staircase, going down on a beautiful girl, about university age. Neither acknowledge us beyond a sulky nod when we creep by, anxious not to stand on any splayed limbs.
His pale blue eyes look familiar but it’s not until we’re through into the main living area that I make the connection. He has a different hairstyle than he did in the pub, but I’m certain he’s the broken bottle arse grabber from the night of Kincaid surprise visit.
Which explains how Kincaid and Jared knew to turn up that night, and… I come to an abrupt stop. “Did you get your friend to steal my phone?”
Kincaid shrugs. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re tracking me, aren’t you? That’s how you knew about the pawn shop.”
“I prefer the term stalking.” He reaches back to grab my hand, tugging me forward. “And don’t play the wide-eyed innocent. You the girl who pawned both of my gifts.”
We enter the kitchen and find another boy. White hair. Dark eyes. A sunny grin on his face.
“It’s nothing special,” he says in a mocking voice as Kincaid grabs a couple of waters from the fridge. The tease goes over my head but based on Kincaid’s growl, he knows exactly what it means.
I haven’t seen Ezra but know he must be around, and I have absolutely no desire to meet him or his infamous father.
When Kincaid leads me upstairs to his room, I happily follow.
His room is stark with an extra-large bed stealing the focus. The bedside cabinet is bare apart from a tiny object resting on top. When I look closer, I see it’s the ladybug clip he stole from my hair.
Kincaid pulls me onto the bed and hugs me close until my mind is lazy with sleep. It would be easy to close my eyes and forget my problems.
But my secrets are too corrosive to leave until tomorrow.
I sit upright and take a sip of water. A thousand opening sentences swirl in my mind, but I decide on a more circular route. “There’s a rumour at school…”
He takes my hand and puts it on his cock, which instantly hardens under my fingers. “It’s all true,” he says. “If they’re talking about how monstrous I am, this is what they mean.”
I wrinkle my nose in amusement, taking firmer hold. “The other one. About how you killed a man over summer.”
“Ah. And where did you hear that?”
“Around school.” I nibble at the inside of my cheek, always bitten ragged. “On the very first day.”
“What a nice introduction to Westlake.”
“The girl who showed me around also mentioned that most of the families that attend are filthy rich and more than their fair share are complicit in organised crime.”
“What? I’ve never heard such slander. We really need to get your tour guide a new script. What’s her name?”
I poke him in the ribs. “Are you suggesting I’m a snitch?”
“Miss ‘I’ll call the police?’ Never.”
When he sniggers, I grip his cock harder. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation here.”
“Relax, Freckles. No one’s stopping you.” Kincaid captures my free hand, giving it a kiss before releasing it. “It’s true. Were you wanting tips?”
When I don’t immediately answer, he turns on his side, taking my hand off his cock and clasping it to his chest instead. His eyes meet mine, soft and undemanding, affection shimmering in their depths.
“Yes. I killed a man, and it wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time that it was my idea rather than an order.”
My breath catches. “Your uncle orders you to kill people?”
“Not often.” There’s a slight wariness in his expression, then he nods. “But, yeah. It’s part of the job.” After a short pause, he adds, “They’re not good men. He would never go to that length without a reason.”
I nod, closing my eyes. “And what was your reason?”
He cradles me closer, the warmth of his body heating mine like a furnace. I can’t remember being free of cold; both from the weather and the residual horror of the things I’ve done.
But now I’m not just warm, I’m toasty. I could stay wrapped in his heat forever.
“The man I killed…” Kincaid swallows, looking far younger as he forces out the words. “He raped my mother. I would’ve killed him sooner, but it took eighteen years to track him and earn enough standing that my uncle granted permission.”
“Your father?” I guess, appalled and sympathetic.
“My mother’s rapist is the moniker I prefer to use. Maybe sperm donor if I’m being generous.”
“And your uncle approved?” He nods. “Do you get on with him?”
“He’s my true family. I love him.” He kisses my fingertips, one by one. “And I also respect the hell out of him, which isn’t something I say lightly.”
I still haven’t admitted what I need to, but my urgency has faded. I enjoy lying here while he shares, discussing things I doubt he talks to many others about, if any.
It removes my doubt and replaces it with courage.
“There was a man my mother dated,” I say, sensing my way through the words. I can sense them, paused, waiting to scatter, or to clog my throat. “For long enough I thought of him as my stepfather. Mike. He…”
A lump chokes me, tears welling in too many numbers to hold back with a sniff. I close my eyes and bury my nose into his side, hiding from the world, just for a moment.
Kincaid’s voice is gentle as he asks, “Is he the one who abused you?”
“He didn’t… not like you. I never had a cut or a scar.”
“Sometimes you flinch and I’m not even sure you’re aware of it.” He cups my shoulder. “Other times you freeze like you’ve turned to stone.”
He strokes my hair, combing out the strands with his fingers. The rhythmic movement is calming, and I give a contented wee hum.
“How did he hurt you?”
This time, I tilt my head so I can make eye contact and Kincaid drags me farther up the bed so I can rest on the pillow, noses almost touching. The soothing motion of his large hand keeps me calm as I sort through the jumble of what to say.
“Just… controlling everything I did and everyone I saw. He told me if I ever came home with so much as a hickey, he’d lock me into a chastity belt and throw away the key. When he thought I was having impure thoughts, he made me kneel in penance.” My joints ache at the reminder. “A few minutes would be fine, but he made me sit like that for hours, upright, on a hardwood floor. Sometimes he’d scatter rice to make it more painful. Dried kidney beans one time.”
I whimper and Kincaid folds me into an embrace so tight it feels like he’ll never let me go.
Where it would once have made me panic, calm now suffuses my muscles, sinking to my bones. The cocoon of his arms is a thousand times safer than curling on the backseat of my car, underneath the duvet, not letting a single chink of light into the darkness.
It’s not just safety, it’s strength.
The rhythmic throb of his heartbeat is the world’s best metronome, giving my racing thoughts a place to focus, a refuge for them to catch their breath.
“That was the only thing where the bruises were visible, but kids bruise their knees all the time. The other… he would press on the arteries in my neck until I fainted, waiting for me to regain consciousness so he could do it again. Once, he tied my hands behind my back and put a noose around my neck, leaving me balancing on tiptoes on a high stool while he went out for the night.”
“And where was your mother?”
“If she intervened, he’d hurt her worse than me.”
His eyes are steady on mine. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll deal with him, Freckles. He won’t ever hurt you again.”
I gulp.
This is where I say it.
This is where I take the black weight that’s been pressing on my shoulders and share it with him.
He’ll use it against you. He might say he’ll never hurt you, but violence is as violence does, and Kincaid is far more violent than Mike ever dreamed.
I screw my eyes shut, willing myself to talk despite the doubt.
My heart says he won’t, but every nerve screams the opposite. Memories crowd my brain, comparing, contrasting, working to find the evidence to prove he’s not the gentle giant holding me, promising to protect me.
“You can tell me anything, you know.”
“I know.”
Don’t you dare trust him.
Don’t you tell.
This thing between us hit at a thousand miles an hour. Moving so fast, the last few weeks have been filled with so much conflict and emotion, they stretch out like years.
But even a cautious approach can’t protect me from the stark truth. That the only way to tell for sure if someone is trustworthy is to trust them. To trust them and let them show who they are.
“When I got accepted into Westlake, Mum and I planned our escape. We were careful and thought we’d covered our tracks… but he still found us. I came home from school one day and he—”
I break off, fighting for control. It takes a few minutes, and Kincaid doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t try to speak for me.
“He ordered me to my room to get changed and I… I couldn’t… I’d been putting up nails to hang pictures and the hammer was in there, and—”
“You don’t have to say the rest unless you want to.”
I nod, gulping in a breath. “He was holding Mum’s arm hard enough to bruise, lecturing her in the voice he always used when he was correcting us. That was his word for it. And I couldn’t stand it, not again. Not when we’d tried so hard and gave up so much.” I clamp my lips together, gathering strength. “He was calm, the way he always got before he really hurt me. I hit him. A lot. I killed him.”
My mind goes slack with horror. It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud and I can never take those words back.
“Then we… neither of us knew what to do. We dragged him into the garage, but we couldn’t really lift him. I had to string ropes through pulleys on the garage beams to get him into the freezer. Mum went out to move his car and grab a pack of cigarettes. An hour later, she sent a text telling me she needed time to think. A few days.” The part that still hurts most of all. “She never came back. I later found she’d taken most of her stuff and I hadn’t noticed. She still won’t answer my calls or texts.”
Kincaid rests his forehead against mine. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”
“I don’t deserve to be safe. I murdered him.”
“You spared him far worse.”
I stare, not understanding.
“Freckles, if that man were still alive today, I would hunt him down and torture him to death so slowly, a few bangs on the head would be a treat in comparison.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and he gently wipes it away.
“You spared him days of agony, and I can assure you, if anyone even thinks of hurting you like that again, they won’t be as lucky.”
The dam breaks. All the grief of the last few months comes spilling out, reducing me to a soggy mess against Kincaid’s chest. Even when he must feel more like a tissue than a human being, he doesn’t pull away.
There’s more I should tell him. About my attempts to get the mess sorted, the man I contacted, the one I asked to kill Kincaid. Better to be upfront now than explain later. And he deserves an explanation for why I pawned the beautiful bracelet.
But the prospect is too complicated. Too many words for my tired brain to string together.
Instead, I fall silent, and Kincaid holds me tight, rocking me until the spent secret drains of all its poison, and I finally fall asleep.